NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
The US government left behind more than $7 billion in military equipment while withdrawing from Afghanistan during a chaotic and deadly pullback last year, an inspector general confirmed Tuesday.
A Department of Defense inspector general explained that the majority of the $7 billion in equipment left in the country consisted of tactical ground vehicles such as Humvees and mine-resistant MRAPS.
When Kabul fell to the Taliban in mid-August 2021, the Afghan military had an inventory of ground vehicles worth about $4.12 billion.
In addition to ground vehicles, the US military lost $923.3 million worth of military aircraft and $294.6 million worth of aircraft ammunition.
A YEAR AGO, BIDEN PROMISE TO ‘STAY’ IN AFGHANISTAN UNTIL ‘ALL’ AMERICANS GET OUT. HE DID NOT KEEP HIS WORD
The Taliban hold a military parade with captured US Army equipment on November 8, 2021 in Kandahar, Afghanistan. (Murteza Khaliqi/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
However, the report notes that “some” of the aircraft “were demilitarized and rendered inoperable during the evacuation.”
The inspector general’s report said 316,260 small arms, including sniper rifles, machine guns and grenade launchers, worth $511.8 million were abandoned.
POLITICO REPORTS EXIT FROM AFGHANISTAN AS THE ‘DARK CLOUD’ ABOUT BIDEN’S APPROVAL EVALUATION, IT LIKELY CAN’T RECOVER
The Taliban hold a military parade with captured US Army equipment on November 8, 2021 in Kandahar, Afghanistan. (Murteza Khaliqi/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.
In the months following the withdrawal from Afghanistan, Taliban fighters have paraded the streets on several occasions, parading military equipment confiscated by the US
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
“It is ruthless that high-tech military equipment paid for by US taxpayers has fallen into the hands of the Taliban and their terrorist allies,” Republican lawmakers said in a letter to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin last year. “Securing US assets should have been a top priority for the US Department of Defense before announcing the withdrawal from Afghanistan.”
Andrew Mark Miller is a Fox News writer. Find him on Twitter @andymarkmiller and email tips to [email protected].